To be ignoring DHs strop about getting up with the children?

[Eileen101]

We have an almost 3 year old and 8 month old. I do almost every night time wake and early morning (between 5 and 6) and have done since the toddler was born. DH has never offered an early get up so I can sleep in and used to say no when I asked when toddler was a baby (this still hurts, toddler went through a stage as a baby where he didn't sleep longer than an hour at a time, then up for the day between 4.30 and 5.30. I was almost on my knees with sleep deprivation and pnd). He kept saying no when I asked, so I stopped asking.

He works shifts so I'm sure to make sure that he sleeps as well as he can. When he gets home from work at 3am, I make sure that he's not disturbed before 11/12 etc.

I asked Friday for him to do the 5.30 wake up over the weekend and he agreed to Sunday. So I reminded him last night and this morning, put toddler in with me when he woke then prodded him to take them both Downstate when baby woke.

There were mutterings about having been up with toddler between 12 and 1 (he is getting better in this regard, he will go to toddler at night if I'm feeding baby, or if he's still up watching a film and I'm already asleep). I ignored him and sent him down anyway - I was up with baby and toddler 10-11ish and baby between 4 and 5 resettling before she woke toddler

I do feel bad that he was up in the night and doing an early get up for a change. Should I have just taken them down and left him to sleep? He brought baby up to me in a mood about half an hour ago for a feed to sleep for nap and I know he's having a strop, especially his tone with toddler I can hear from downstairs. I'm ignoring the strop.
AIBU to have insisted on my first sleeping past 5.30, I think since before I went into labour with toddler??

You haven’t had a lie in for three years, yet for some reason you feel bad? Is that because you know he’ll huff and puff if you say anything? He needs to bloody well grow up.

Ha, I remember all your threads at the time @MrsKoala!

I’m so sorry OP but is the eldest of your 3 babies not potty trained yet? Because it seems like you’re still wiping his arse for him.
Why is he stopping at your toddler? Does he not realise what a pathetic excuse for a male specimen this all makes him?
I’d do as PP suggested and behave as he does (obviously without allowing any real harm to come to the kids). Make him question you, make him justify himself, make the fucker squirm with embarrassment when he realises what he looks like in your eyes.
If he doesn’t have the grace to be embarrassed then you know he holds you in utter contempt and that’s a whole other thread to be had.

I'm finding it so hard to imagine the conversations where you asked for a very bare minimum amount of sharing the load from him and he said no? How could he possibly justify that?

Does he claim to love you? Because - and I know this isn't a nice thing to hear - he doesn't, does he? No one treats someone they love like that; no one would say no to someone they loved if they asked for a tiny bit of support when they were desperate.

Not unreasonable but I've had a similar experience. The shift patterns somehow seem to make it harder to put the foot down as often when I can go to bed early he obviously is working til well past midnight. I basically now insist he takes the toddler out in the day when not working (even if for 2 hours in the park or a drive round) so that I get quieter time with just the baby

@WhateverJudy I totally understand it comes across that way! He is much better than that, just shockingly awful in that regard. I fixed it after ds2 by going to paris on my own for a few days when he was about 9mo for some R&R before going back to work. Friends would be shocked to hear he was like that overnight, everyone thinks he’s amazing and I’m so lucky. I am not lucky, I’ve worked bloody hard to get him to the partner stage! - we have had many discussions and I’m so far from a pushover. I work full time in a busy job, earn roughly the same/more than him, so I do morning drop offs, he does pick up and brings them home and does dinner and when I’m in the office bath and often bed solo. We both do washing tidying etc. I do more admin so he pays bills, and while we couldn’t get a cleaner in during lockdown he did the cleaning, as I don’t take the lead role in life admin and clean toilets too . He found and booked the cleaner this time round as I’ve said that kind of thing shouldnt all be my job, booked our oldest into summer camp and did the medical forms etc, he had to take some leave last year in lockdowns so parented those days. He does the diy and takes lead on construction. The boys adore him, he’s great at taking them out to the park and for a swim and to play with cousins and to classes and to sing songs etc, and he does half of nights now (most nights between ds2 and ds5 we still have a wakeup) , he does most weekend mornings, he’s doing most of the meal planning and shopping too. He does the endless bedtimes while I have evening meetings or while I go for a run. I still do more thinking and planning but we both do a lot really. I’m very unwell during pregnancy so he will be doing pretty much all food most housekeeping and all weekends for a few months when that happens. I split us up in 2019 so I didn’t have to cut our holiday short because he had work and split the dc too so he flew long haul with the then 4yo and I flew separately with the 1yo to go somewhere else en route, I make sure we balance things! I’m taking next week off for ds to start school and he’s taking the following week, we alternate days we have to take off work with our dc as they are kept home with every sniffle at the moment of course. Next baby will be fine and have a very active dad , I think he will take some time off work and do the sahd thing for a month or two when I go back this time.

Your husband is a selfish git who doesnt deserve you or his children.

I cannot believe when you ask him to get up he just says no! I mean, does he even give a reason why he cant do it or is it just because he is a twat?

My DH tends to rise earlier than I do so he's always gotten the kids up and let me sleep. But if I woke first and he was sleeping (this was more so when the kids were small) I would get up. This is parents do, share the load.

Time to put a rota and set of rules in place OP. Time to stop being a doormat.

Can this be posted again? I’ve seen it copied and pasted in so many threads recently, unfortunately. The bits about not getting up are relevant.

‘I’m copying and pasting this incredible post from another thread. It cannot be repeated enough on Mumsnet. Unfortunately, I can’t recall the original author.

(This post is specifically geared at women in heterosexual relationships.) Ok ladies, we need to talk.

Every few weeks there's a post that makes the admin team spend a day debating if we should say something or not. These posts are always on the same theme; husbands who are not pulling their weight.

Well, after just reading a post from this week were a whopping 4 HUNDRED of you commented in solidarity with the OP I've decided today is the day we say something.

Household chore inequity and child care inequality is a form of domestic abuse. It forces women to work themselves into exhaustion and illness, whilst men buy their free time with female exhaustion.

No one wants to see themselves as being in an abusive relationship. It means acknowledging that someone you love, someone you married or committed to, someone you chose to have children with is taking advantage of you and that hurts on so many levels.

it's heartbreaking to acknowledge, but acknowledge it we must.

If your husband or partner is capable of working at their job without being micromanaged and given extremely explicit instructions, then they are capable of contributing fairly at home without being given extremely explicit instructions and micromanaged. If they act like they are incapable they are gaslighting you.

If they were capable of living independently without living in a rat-infested pigsty without any clean clothes and living off pizza, then they are capable of ensuring children are fed and clothed, groceries are done, and household chores are shared equally. If they act like they are incapable they are gaslighting you.

If they claim they love you and yet your health comes secondary to their leisure, they're gaslighting you.

If they claim they can't possibly function and it would be unsafe for them to work with broken sleep, but it's totally fine for you to have to work, drive and do all the household chores and childcare on broken sleep, they're taking advantage of you.

If they say they are going to get up in the night and help but when the time comes the pretend to be asleep/complain, they're gaslighting you.

If they don't even actually try to settle the baby and had bub back almost immediately with "they just want you:", they're gaslighting you.

If your health, sanity, sleep, work, or self-esteem are suffering because you are the one doing everything, whilst they leverage your exhaustion into their free time, they're abusing you.
Like other forms of abuse, it will not get better on its own. It's not an accident.

So please ladies. Please stop laughing it off as "just men"

It's not just men. It's purposeful.

It might not be consciously purposeful, but it is still purposeful. They know they can get away with it.

one of you being on antidepressants because your husband won't help raise the children he fathered is one too many. 400+ of you being exhausted to the brink of PND and breakdowns is heartbreaking for us to watch.

You can't fix this by night weaning. Or sleep training. Or bedsharing, or chore charts, or even kicking hubby into the spare room. There are only two things that will fix this - therapy, or leaving.

I am sorry.’

Of course you should ignore it. In the same way you ignore toddler tantrums.

The strop is simply designed to get you back in line. How dare you expect him to do a morning wake up?

God, I was barely past the bit about him repeatedly refusing to help out when your eldest was a baby before I was raging on your behalf! What a selfish prick! Do not feel guilty & stand your ground- they're his kids too!!

From now on, you get at least one lie-in every weekend.

You take the Saturday, because if he sabotages it, you can try again on the Sunday (or tell him that he'll get exactly as much of a lie-in on the Sunday as you got on the Saturday).

OP I feel for you.

My husband is a selfish prick.

He would do it - but he would be fucking unbearable about it.

If I've ever made him get up in the night he will be stroppy, impatient and loud which wakes the baby even more, or the next day he will be a misery. It will then be held over me forever what a wonderful thing he did by letting me rest. He even chucks is back in my face when I've had a shower as if it's a treat.

I can't ignore the stops because it affects the children.

(Why am I with him? He had a few redeeming qualities. And to be honest, as a 40 year old who's only qualified to work in care or be a cleaner due to raising children for 18 years, fucking up my own education because I was lazy, putting my previous husband and now this ones career before all else and only ever done shitty part time jobs in the above, I'm better off in a couple than going it alone. If I had my life over again blah blah blah, but it is what it is).

So your arsehole of a husband is not satisfied enough with treating you like shit he is now taking his mood out on your toddler.

A Prince amongst men.

Read him the riot act and tell him he is ruining your relationship and there will be no going back. Then start getting your things in order, without significant change on his behalf your relationship is dead. Because he doesn’t care about your welfare nor respect you, and he has no issue with transferring that distain onto your kids. It might take you years but you will eventually leave him. Guarantee it